Pictures of the week: Beaches, by Gray Malin

Pictures of the week: Beaches, by Gray Malin

Each week, the Guardian Weekend magazine's editorial team choose a picture, or set of pictures, that particularly tickle their fancy. This week, their choice is Gray Malin's aerial views of beaches all over the world

From this vantage point, you can’t see many bare bottoms, but that’s not really the point. Gray Malin’s beaches are abstract landscapes that home in on colour, pattern and form, rather than sandy limbs and salty hair. →

'I love the composition of beaches from the air,' says Malin, who has photographed them in this way the world over. As photography assignments go, there are worse. 'Beaches are universally appealing,' he says. 'There’s even beauty in empty sunloungers. I’m drawn to the uniform repetition of umbrellas, towels and tiny figures that you don’t see from the Earth.' →

The trickiest part of each shoot isn’t getting the light levels right (beaches are brighter than sea water), or hair whipping in his face as he hangs out of the side of the chopper, or camera shake, but finding a decent pilot. →

That, and navigating countries’ various aerial height restrictions. Malin’s next assignment is the Italian coast, followed in December, he hopes, by Antarctica. If he pulls that off, he will have photographed beaches on all seven continents. →

The series, A la Plage, A la Piscine, started life in Las Vegas, when Malin photographed his hotel’s swimming pool from his top-floor room. He then shot pools in Miami, among other cities, before turning his attention to the sea. →